


A nice story for spies, incidentally

by NomadicSecret



Series: Insomnia-induced head canon/AU ideas [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Drabble, Multi, The Philadelphia Story - Freeform, Unfinished, high society - Freeform, some of these characters/relationships are blink-and-you'll-miss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-22
Updated: 2015-05-22
Packaged: 2018-03-31 16:32:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3985036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NomadicSecret/pseuds/NomadicSecret
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint/Coulson & company does The Philadephia Story/High Society. If you're not familiar with those movies, you should go do that first. This'll wait. Either's worth your time, although Bing Crosby is not Cary Grant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Philadelphia Story

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a line from the movie, though Tracy is talking about tabloid reporters more than SHIELD-type spies. Still, it was too good to pass on.
> 
> This is two for the price of one, actually. At different points I began two separate versions of a fusion fic with a reshuffling of the roles, so I'll post it in two chapters to hopefully avoid confusion. Neither is terribly coherent on its own, so if you don't know the plot you'll likely be pretty confused there. It might be confusing even if you do know the plot of the movie(s), but it might be funny anyway? Hopefully.

“You’ve got to be kidding.” Clint glared at his boss, who glared back equally fiercely with his one good eye.

“I am not,” Fury replied calmly. “Banner is a danger; he needs to be contained or controlled.”

“Or eliminated,” Clint added.

Fury inclined his head silently.

“Sir, he’s been more than a year without incident,” Natasha supplied smoothly, her tone free of the rank insubordination that suffused Clint’s.

Fury turned his glare on her. “Oh, a whole seventy-six weeks without mass civilian casualties?”

“Every time he’s lost control either he or someone else has been under attack,” Clint argued. “There’s collateral damage, but if people would just leave the guy alone-”

“Barton, you’ll be undercover as a _Daily Bugle_ reporter.”

“They’re letting a tabloid reporter in?” Clint sounded both incredulous and pained.

“Not exactly.” Fury smirked.

Clint finally took the file out of Natasha’s hand. “Quote: no hunter of buckshot in the rear is cagey, crafty, Clint. Unquote. Close paragraph.”

“Close job, close bank account,” Natasha added calmly.

“You really hate me, don’t you Barton?” Fury asked idly.

“No, sir,” Clint said. He’d known reasons to hate in his lifetime, and Fury didn’t rank even close. He paused. “I don’t like you very much, though.” There was a soft huff from Natasha that indicated her amusement.

“How am I going in, sir?” she asked.

“Damnit, Nat, we’re not doing it!” Clint snarled. “Let him fire us, it’s not like-”

“If you want to be _terminated_ ….” Fury trailed off, leaning forward with implied menace.

Clint broke off abruptly and looked down at Natasha’s tightly held shoulders. “Fine,” he bit off. He turned and stormed through the doors.

 

 

“I miss Tony,” Darcy grumbled. Bruce looked up from his physics journal and caught the glare that Pepper levelled at her younger sister. “What? I do.”

“You like Phil,” Bruce reminded her.

“Yeah, as a person. Not as a prospective brother-in-law.”

“Darcy,” Pepper began sharply. “We’ve had this discussion and it is _closed_.”

“No, we really haven’t. And it’s not. Phil’s great, don’t get me wrong, but you’re not in love with him and he’s not in love with you and frankly I think you’re both being great big _cowards_!” Darcy spat. The two women glared at each other across the huge pile of gifts.

“Is everything alright?” Phil asked calmly from the doorway. With him, it was impossible to tell if he had heard the outburst or not.

“Of course, dear,” Pepper said, immediately pasting on a smile. He crossed to her chair and she tilted her cheek up for him to kiss.

“Need some help?”

“That would be lovely,” Pepper replied. “I think Darcy’s a little tired.” She sent her sister a stern look.

“Fine. I’ve got homework.” Darcy rose and stomped off.

“I’ve actually also got, you know, work,” Bruce said. “Nice to see you, Phil.”

“You’ll be at dinner later?” Phil asked.

“Yes, of course.” He flashed a bland smile at the FBI agent and chased after Darcy.

 

“How can you be okay with this?” she demanded angrily. “He’s your best friend!”

“Because she’s my other best friend, and I want to see her happy,” he replied placidly.

“But she’s not!” Darcy insisted. “She’s content!”

“Maybe that’s all any of us can ask,” Bruce said.

“That’s bullshit.”

 

 

“Would you like to tell me why you haven’t mentioned your second career as a photographer for the _Daily Bugle_?” Peggy asked icily. Steve turned bright red and began stammering.

“Because the kid’s embarrassed and he’s got a massive crush on you,” Clint replied for him. Steve turned even redder.

“That would be more believable, I’m afraid, if you didn’t share so many bylines.”

“Is it so hard to believe, ma’am, that being his partner means being his friend and having his back?” Clint’s voice was equally cold now.

 

 

“Does he make you laugh, Pep?” Tony stalked toward her, dangerous like a jungle cat. “Does he keep you up all night screaming his name?” he purred into her ear. He exhaled warm air onto her ear and she got goosebumps that only migrated as she felt his mouth drift lower, never quite coming into contact with her neck. She wrenched herself away before her knees could give out.

“He doesn’t make me cry,” she said bitterly. “And I’ve never stayed up all night wondering if he was dead in a ditch somewhere, or in a car wrapped around a telephone pole, or passed out and suffocating on his own vomit, or just in another woman’s bed.” Tears sprang into her eyes.

“Is everything alright, Pepper?” Phil asked softly. She whirled to see him in the doorway and went to him, burying her face in his shoulder. He folded her into his arms carefully, like something fragile. She heard Tony storm off past them.

 

 

 

“Ooh, hey, improbably buff writer, I have a job for you!” the bride’s little sister called. He sighed when he saw her half-supporting the groom, but pasted on a smile as he drew nearer.

“Always happy to give a pretty lady a hand,” he said. “Or two.” He winked.

“Well, how about a handsome gentleman?” she replied.

“What?” Coulson and Clint asked in concert.

“Can you give my soon-to-be-brother-in-law a ride please?” she asked. Her eyes went wide and puppy-dog when he hesitated, knowing that it was a bad idea. The man had looked ridiculously good earlier. Now, with his suit rumpled and the flush of alcohol high on his cheeks, being near him was like self-flagellation, even for Clint.

He opened his mouth to make and excuse. “Yeah, sure. Back to the main house?”

“Gatehouse,” Darcy corrected. “They’re old-fashioned.”

 

“Why do you hate me?” Coulson asked plaintively.

“I don’t hate you,” Clint replied.  “And anyway, why would you care? You’re a successful FBI agent about to marry one of the most powerful women in the world and I’m just a lowly tabloid reporter.”

“You’re beautiful. I mean, your writing is beautiful. And so are you,” he added, punctuating the statement with a hiccup.

“You’re drunk,” Clint said, trying to ignore the flip of his stomach at hearing the words.

“How does it go? Tomorrow I’ll be sober, but you’ll still be-”

“Tomorrow you’re going to be hungover.” Clint cut him off and Coulson stayed blessedly silent for the rest of the drive. Clint hesitated before moving to help support the other man, but he wasn’t going to make it from the car to his bed (his door, _fuck_ , why would Clint think about his bed?) without aid. With Coulson’s arm over his shoulder, they made their way to the door. Clint tried it, hoping it would be unlocked. Thankfully it was, so he manoeuvered the drunk FBI agent in and over to the couch. He ducked out from under the older man’s arm. Phil swayed but didn’t collapse onto the couch.

He looked at Clint, his eyes sharper than they had any right to be. Finally he shuffled forward a step.

“Kiss me,” he said. It was halfway between a command and a plea.

Clint had to close his eyes against the temptation. “I don’t kiss married men.”

“I’m not married,” Phil replied, his breath drifting softly across Clint’s lips.

“Close enough.” Clint opened his eyes and stepped away.

Phil didn’t speak until he reached the door. “But you kiss men.”

“What?” Clint turned back, the door halfway open.

“You didn’t say you don’t kiss men.”

“No, I didn’t,” he agreed.

“Good night, Clint.”

“Good night, Mr. Coulson,” Clint replied.

 

 

“Pep? You okay?” Darcy asked softly.

“I don’t know, Darc. I don’t think I can marry Phil. But I can’t _not_ , not now.” She shook her head.

Despite thinking this was what she had wanted ( _because_ of it, perhaps) Darcy felt guilty. “You know I just want you to be happy, right?”

“Of course I do.” Pepper laid her head on Darcy’s shoulder.

 

 

“Talk to me, Phil,” Maria ordered.

“Do you mind?” he demanded.

“Honestly? Yes, a little, but Peggy’s busy batting her eyes at the artist kid and Sitwell’s taking bets, so someone’s got to be here to witness your panic attack, if only to settle Sitwell’s pool.”

“You’re all heart,” Phil said with a scowl, and resumed dressing. Hill shrugged, mostly suppressing her smirk.

“C’mon, what’s up?”

“I’m pretty sure I asked Barton to kiss me last night.”

“Pretty sure?” Maria asked.

“I did,” he admitted.

“So?”

“What?” he whirled on her with outrage.

“So … did he? So … what now?”

“No,” Phil sighed, answering the easier question.

 

 

“I need to talk to you,” Pepper said, wringing her hands and looking ready to cry. Phil collapsed into the opposite chair, concluding that she had heard about Jasper’s _fucking_ betting pool.

“I’m so sorry,” he said.

“I never meant for – what?” the surprise breaking through her distress was almost comical.

“I – I came onto Barton last night,” he admitted.

She broke down into uncharacteristic giggles. Panic flared. Was this a nervous breakdown?

“ _Tony_ ,” she eventually choked out in response to his near-frantic reaction.

When Clint turned the corner, he found the happy couple entwined in each other, laughing their heads off. Phil beamed and planted an enthusiastic kiss on Pepper’s cheek. Clint whirled and fled.

 

 


	2. High Society

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, this is unrelated to the first chapter except in inspiration. Natasha's character was going to to be revealed as more than she seems, but I never got around to that part, so she winds up getting the short end of the stick. This wanders a little farther from the source in that Phil, Maria and Jasper (HYDRA what HYDRA?) got out of their respective military branches and became wedding planners. Because I said so. And also, they'd be incredibly efficient and Coulson's a total romantic. And anyone who can wrangle the Avengers could deal with Bridezillas no problem. Then there's some gunfire and attempted hostage-taking that is definitely not in the movie and is resolved in an unwritten portion of the story. Sorry 'bout that. But this one has a happy ending!
> 
> There's one scene that's pretty close to one in the previous chapter and the source material, but there's a different character in it and some backstory on Clint and Steve, so I left it in.

 “You’re kidding. Tony Stark’s wedding? How the fuck are we supposed to do that?” Clint asked, playing dumb and signaling Steve below the desk to let him handle this. Thankfully the younger man seemed amenable.

Fury just smirked. “Being in the band might help.”

“That won’t give us the kind of access we’d need to write an actual story – not anything with any meat on it.” He avoided Steve’s incredulous look. Nothing they worked on had any meat on it. It was more like cotton candy.

“I’m confident that you’ll find a way.”

“How’s this? Quote: no hunter of buckshot in the rear is cagey, crafty, Clint. Unquote. Close paragraph.”

“Close job, close bank account,” Fury said coolly. “But I’m sure that won’t be a problem, hmm?”

Clint pushed out of his chair and turned his back.

“You really hate me, don’t you Barton?” Fury asked idly.

“No, sir,” Clint said. He’d known reasons to hate in his lifetime, and Fury didn’t rank even close. He paused. “I don’t like you very much, though.”

Steve snorted. Clint sighed in defeat.

“Damnit, Clint, we’re not doing it!” Steve said, sensing the moment he gave in. He turned back. Now Steve was on his feet. “Not to Tony Stark and what’s-her-name, not to _ourselves_ , and especially not to Bucky!”

“You know exactly what Buck will say,” Clint said evenly. James ‘Bucky’ Buchanan had been looking out for Steve for longer than Clint had known him, back when Steve would stubbornly drag himself into school and mouth off at bullies. Back when he was weak and emaciated from the first round of chemo. Clint had met Steve during his second go at the cancer that ravaged his body, when Clint was recovering from the parting shot (literally) of Trick and Barney’s. Now Clint’s shoulder and his knee only ached when it rained or when he overextended, and Steve was even broader in the shoulders than he was. The kid still managed to pick fights he couldn’t finish, though, and Clint and Bucky conspired to keep him in one piece and in the black. Neither of them could risk being fired, not with the medical bills they still had hanging over them, and Fury damn well knew it.

“There’s no reason that anyone needs to be hurt. Stark probably wouldn’t even mind, you know how he is with the media,” Fury said.

“We’ll do it,” Clint said evenly.

“Clint!” Steve said plaintively. Unfortunately it only reminded Clint of how _young_ the other man was, young like Clint had never been.

“C’mon, kid,” Clint said simply.

 

 

“I still think we should tell them,” Steve muttered rebelliously.

“And I still think it’s kinder to them to give them plausible deniability. And more fair,” Clint said, dropping one of Steve’s magic words.

“Wow. Would you believe this place?” Bucky caught up to them, his guitar case slung over his shoulder. “D’you think we should find the servant’s entrance?”

“How d’you know this isn’t the servant’s entrance?” Clint asked cheekily. “Let’s go, this shit’s heavy.” Their drummer Jane weighed about 90 pounds soaking wet, so Clint always helped her with her drum kit. Rhodey (and he’d heard every variant of that joke) was their bass player and Steve had, in his youth, been a classically trained pianist. What he played was less classical, these days. They all had day jobs, ranging from the indignity of tabloid ‘reporting’ to Jane’s in-progress PhD in theoretical Physics.

His day job was made easier by Stark’s insistence that they practice in his building and on his dime, which was lucky considering that what they’d been given was, in Bucky’s words, ‘the weirdest set list I’ve ever seen’, not to mention the _full dress rehearsal_ the bride was demanding.

 

 

“Seriously, a dress rehearsal? Who does that?” Maria groused.

“A former ballerina marrying a man with more money than God?” Phil suggested.

“She wants the caterers, Phil!” Maria said. “To make the full two hundred dinners!” He remained silent. She knew that he knew this, and that he thought it was as ridiculous as she did. She was just blowing off steam, and he couldn’t blame her.

 

 

 

 

The man who’d been about to shoot Phil fell with an arrow buried in his chest. He whirled to see Clint standing there with a motherfucking bow like it was the most natural ( _hottest_ ) thing in the world.

“Where d’you want me boss?” he asked.

Luckily, Phil’s mouth was too dry to articulate the answer that had immediately popped into mind.

“Second floor balcony,” he said a second later when his brain had snapped back into crisis mode.

“You got it,” Clint said.

“So-” Maria began.

“Shut up,” he said. He’d given Clint an earpiece and the younger man was no doubt listening. He didn’t need to hear evidence of Maria and Jasper’s tendency to gossip over comms.

“In position,” Clint reported.

“Your boy’s quick,” Jasper said, from his position pinned down. “Shit, I’m out. Shit, shit, shit.”

“They not teach you to count in the Navy?” Maria asked even and she and Phil moved to cover him.

“Shut up!” he snapped.

“You two are full of really great comebacks today,” Maria said dryly. Two of the four men shooting at Jasper sprouted arrows in their chests.

“Barton, have I mentioned that you’re my favourite?” Jasper asked. Coulson could hear his clip slide home and wow, he really shouldn’t be able to hear that over comms … anymore.

“I’m everybody’s favourite,” Clint said cheerily.

“Why would you be my favourite?”

“Cause I just took out the guy at your seven o’clock?”

Maria shot twice more and glanced over her shoulder.  “Yeah, okay. Phil, I like this one. We should keep him.”

“Can we focus on the people trying to kill us, please?”

“This seems like a lot of guys to grab a hostage,” Clint said. “But hey, what do I know?”

“Well given the fact that they’re _failing_ ,” Jasper said. “I’d say it looks like they don’t know much, either.”

Suddenly the rest of the men in the room stopped shooting and retreated.

 “…That’s not good, is it?” Clint asked.

“No it is not,” Phil agreed.

“Where should I be going?” he asked urgently.

“Left, then right, and it’s the second door on the right,” Coulson said, calling up what he could recall of the building plans. “I’ll meet up with you. We’ll take the second floor and do a sweep. Maria and Jasper, start here. Copy?”

“Copy,” all three replied, Maria and Jasper headed for the south side.

“Any chance you could grab some arrows?” Clint asked. “I only started with twelve.”

Jasper was bitching as he climbed the stairs.

“Fucking Navy,” Maria said. “Why couldn’t I have the new guy?”

“What will your friends do?” Phil asked.

“Uh – probably something stupid,” Clint said. “They’re noble and heroic and antiquated shit like that.”

“Says the guy with the bow,” Jasper muttered.

“They’ll get the civilians to safety first, though,” Clint said. “I’d be more worried about the caterers. And, y’know, Stark.”

“I’m trying not to think about him,” Phil said, pulling open the door of Clint’s hiding place. The younger man took the arrows and tucked them into the quiver slung across his back.

“What now?”

“We do this the old-fashioned way,” Phil said grimly.

“Two steps ahead of you,” Clint replied, raising his bow and grinning.

“No gunfire, copy,” Maria said. None of them had much more ammunition and now that the enemy had dispersed, surprise was important.

“How are you with hand to hand?” Phil asked.

“Been in my share of fights,” Clint replied.

“Stay behind me,” Phil ordered. “And no friendly fire.”

 

 

Clint came back to consciousness slowly, but he placed his surroundings before he even opened his eyes. Hospitals had a distinctive smell, even without the background beeping of the machines monitoring his well-being. He had to open his eyes to register the man in the rumpled suit sleeping in one of the uncomfortable hospital chairs, though.

“Phil?” His voice was husky and quiet, but the other man jerked to awareness.

“Hey.” His smile was tired but sincere. The crinkled corners of his eyes did things to Clint’s heart that made the uniform beeping of the machines jump.

“What’re you doing here?”

“When a guy takes a bullet for you, a bedside vigil seems like the least you can do.”

“You don’t owe me anything,” Clint insisted, his heart sinking.

“…And I wanted to, Clint. Really.” Phil hesitantly reached for his hand, lacing their fingers. “Is that okay?”

“Dude, I took a bullet for you, remember?” Clint said, beaming.

“Maria and Jasper are never going to let that one go, you know. The former Army Ranger as damsel in distress.”

“Oh, should I be apologising?” Clint asked, trying but unable to suppress his grin.

“I’ll let you make it up to me,” Phil promised, drawing a hearty belly laugh.

“Phil’s how’s he – you’re awake!” Bucky glared at Phil.

“I only just woke up,” Clint said, and tracked Bucky’s gaze, which fell to their interlaced fingers.

“Yeah, alright. How are you feeling?”

“Like I got shot, dumbass!” Clint joked.

“Maybe Steve can find a doc to check you out. Huh, Steve?” Bucky nudged his friend.

“What?” Clint asked.

“Dr. Carter,” Steve mumbled.

“Did you cowboy up and ask her out, or are we still in the awkward-crush phase?”

“She pretty much asked herself out for him,” Bucky supplied.

“How about you?” Steve prompted.

“What? Oh, the stealing Tony Stark’s fiancée thing? Whatever,” Bucky shrugged, but he was grinning.

“Are you gonna have to, like, go on the run?” Clint asked.

“Given that he already married Pepper Potts, I kinda don’t think so.”


End file.
